Deals & People June 8, 2010

Mitchem Tapped for SSgA DC Post

State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) has appointed Kristi Mitchem to senior managing director and global head of its defined contribution business.
Reported by

Mitchem is responsible for advancing SSgA’s $252-billion global defined contribution business, including product development, distribution, pricing, client service, operations, and marketing activities, a company announcement said.

She will also work closely with SSgA’s offices and investment centers worldwide to build a competitive defined contribution offering that is tailored to meet regional and country-specific requirements, the company said. Mitchem reports to Jamie Kase, executive vice president and head of Global Sales and Marketing at State Street Global Advisors.

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“Defined contribution market growth is accelerating at a rapid pace and it’s critical to SSgA’s long term growth,” said Kase, in the announcement. “Plan sponsors and their participants face many challenges today including investment choices and the need for ongoing education to ensure sufficient retirement savings.”

Mitchem joins SSgA from BlackRock, where she most recently served as managing director and head of the US Defined Contribution business. Prior to this role, she was managing director and head of US Transition Services at Barclays Global Investors (BGI), where she was responsible for redirecting the transition services business and driving top line revenue growth (see “BGI Names US DC Business Chief”). 

Before joining BGI in 2005, Mitchem worked at Goldman Sachs & Co for nine years in a variety of sales and trading roles.

The Markets June 8, 2010

ETF Assets Drop $46B in May

Exchange-traded-fund (ETF) industry assets fell $46 billion for the month of May, or 5.5%, according to State Street Global Advisors’ ETF Snapshot.
Reported by

As of May 31, 885 ETFs in the U.S. with assets totaling approximately $784 billion were managed by 32 ETF managers, the report said.  

While the MSCI EAFE Index fell 11.4%. U.S. bonds rose, with the Barclays U.S. Treasury Index gaining 1.7% and the Barclays U.S. Aggregate Index climbing 0.8%. Gold rose $28 to $1,207 per ounce.  

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Declines in the Size and International categories accounted for nearly three quarters of the total drop in ETF AUM. Only Fixed Income, Commodity, and Inverse/Leveraged ETFs had an increase in assets.

Large Cap assets fell $12.1 billion, followed by Mid Cap, down $2.6 billion. REITs, Energy, and Technology each fell over $1 billion in assets for the month.

The top three managers in the U.S. ETF marketplace were BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard. Collectively, they accounted for approximately 84% of the US-listed ETF market, according to the report. 

The top three products in terms of dollar volume traded for the month were the SPDR S&P 500 [SPY], iShares Russell 2000 [IWM], and PowerShares QQQ [QQQQ]. The SPY dollar volume for May was nearly double that of April. 

The top three products in terms of assets were the SPDR S&P 500 [SPY], SPDR® Gold Shares [GLD], and iShares MSCI Emerging Markets [EEM].

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